A mobile (cellular) telephone for a telecommunications system like GSM, UMTS, D-AMPS or CDMA2000 is a familiar example of a mobile communication terminal according to the above. In recent years, the scope of use of such mobile terminals has been expanded from mere voice communication to include also various additional functionality, such as electronic messaging like SMS, MMS and email. Among these types of electronic messages, SMS messages have hitherto been the most popular, partly because of their simplicity of use and bandwidth-preserving nature (an SMS message being limited to 160 characters of text).
Conventionally, receipt of an electronic message in a mobile terminal is typically indicated as shown at 510a in the upper left part of FIG. 5; a short text like “1 new message” is presented in a popup window 516 on a display 512 of the mobile terminal. The popup window also contains an envelope icon 517 to symbolize the new received message. The popup window 516 typically disappears and is replaced by other information if, for instance, the user chooses to read the new message by selecting a Read menu option 514a, or chooses not to read the message by selecting a Cancel menu option 514b, or when an incoming call is announced, etc. In addition, a contemporary mobile terminal may use an envelope icon like 517 which remains visible on the display 512 (for instance in an uppermost status indicator area 512b), as long as there are unread messages in the mobile terminal.
A drawback with the conventional way of indicating receipt of an electronic message is that the user has no way of telling from whom the message is without having to actually enter the messaging inbox and check the message itself. In many cases, for instance in meetings, this can be quite disturbing for the user, especially if the mobile terminal already has a lot of messages stored, wherein retrieval of the recently received message will take a longer time. If the user is waiting for an important message, this can be quite annoying. Thus, a problem with the prior art is that received messages are indicated anonymously as well as jointly in mobile terminals, typically in the form of a mere indication of the number of received messages and/or a single, static and anonymous envelope icon.
WO 2004/040461 discloses a communication apparatus, such as a mobile terminal, having a controller, an interface adapted to receive an electronic message, a display and a memory. The memory stores image data representing at least one predefined icon to be presented on the display so as to indicate receipt of the electronic message. Moreover, the memory stores an association between the or each predefined icon and a sender of electronic messages. The controller determines a sender of the received electronic message, matches the sender thus determined with the or each predefined icon by way of the association, and presents a matching icon, if any, on the display to indicate receipt of the electronic message as well its sender. This arrangement allows a mobile terminal user to assign a personalized icon to a another mobile terminal user, so that when an electronic message is received from such another user, the personalized icon will be shown as notification of the received message, instead of the anonymous message notification described above, thereby giving the receiving user an immediate indication of the identity of the sender.
While the approach suggested in WO 2004/040461 provides an improvement over the prior art in that it allows a potential receiver of electronic messages to customize his mobile terminal to show personalized icons when receiving messages from potential senders, it has a shortcoming in that such personalized message notification will only work if the receiver has associated the sender with a personalized icon in advance. If receiving a message from a sender for whom the receiver has not created any personalized icon association on beforehand, the receiver's terminal will have to use a standard, anonymous message notification as described above.
A related shortcoming of electronic messaging in mobile telecommunications is its insufficiency in supporting emotional expressions between sender and receiver. Recent research has shown that users of mobile terminals would like to have richer and more surprising messaging. Particularly when communicating through a narrow medium like SMS, it is often difficult to express emotions correctly and effectively. Short text messages can easily be misinterpreted. Richer communication channels (such as MMS or email) are often not very intuitive to use (e.g. in terms of inserting graphical elements as attachments to the message). Neither the message notifications, nor the messaging itself, is currently prominent as regards the ability to provide meaningful, expressive and personal messaging and message notification.